


Ravaged Flowers

by smaragdbird



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Blood, Coughing, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Hanahaki Disease, Introspection, Language of Flowers, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-03-19
Packaged: 2019-11-25 19:39:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18170579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smaragdbird/pseuds/smaragdbird
Summary: Hanahaki Disease(花吐き病 (Japanese); 하나하키병 (Korean); 花吐病 (Chinese)) is a disease in which the victim coughs up flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love. It ends when the beloved returns their feelings, or when the victim dies.He coughed up the first petal a week after the breakup.





	Ravaged Flowers

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this ](https://bacchanalium.tumblr.com/post/177636019316/just-as-a-flower-does-not-choose-its-color-we) beautiful picture by bacchanalium.

He coughed up the first petal a week after the breakup. He could taste it in his mouth, feel the smooth surface as his tongue glided over it, but instead of spitting it out, he swallowed it.

“You’re all right?” Hartnell asked, hitting him on the back as if he had choked on his food.

“Never better”, he replied, but when he looked up, he saw Billy carrying a tray to the captain’s mess where he was serving the meals. It was a small mercy that their different jobs on this ship meant that there was little overlap between their duties.

Seeing him hurt nonetheless and reminding himself of his anger at the way Billy had broken things off between them, didn’t soothe it. He felt hastily took a bite a swallowed to make it look like he was choking on his food.

“Maybe you should slow down”, Hartnell said, his hand coming down hard on his back.

He pushed the new petal between his cheek and teeth with his tongue before he answered, “Probably.” 

It was washed down easily with water and when he looked to the stern again, Billy was gone.

/

Later, in a rare moment of privacy on a ship, he fished one of the petals out of his mouth. It was yellow with its edges tipped with red. Some people believed that the flower you coughed up, or its colour, had a special meaning, but Billy had never mentioned if he had a favourite flower and red and yellow were not commonly seen on a royal navy ship.

His thumb glided over the petal’s surface before he crushed it in his fist. A grimace contorted his face. This could not be happening to him. He was not in love with Billy, not after what had happened, not after Billy’s betrayal.

He had joined this expedition to escape England and make it to Hawaii, not to die because he fell in love with the man who had almost gotten him flogged on sodomy charges.

That night he dreamt of roots winding themselves through his ribcage and along his veins, flowers breaking through his skin to bloom, their petals choking him to death. He would make for a beautiful corpse, a flowerbed on a ship caught in the Arctic ice.

He woke up clawing at his throat, unable to breathe as he coughed up more and more petals. They spilled over his hands and floated gently down to cover his hammock, his bedclothes, the ground. Red streaks like drops of blood.

Thankfully, his coughing fit hadn’t woken anyone else and he gathered the petals as quickly as he could before dumping them in his sea chest. 

/

Week by week he coughed up more petals and it became harder and harder to hide them. Soon he’d cough up entire flowers and soon after that he would be dead. He fancied he could feel the flowers grow in his lungs, could feel their roots branch through his chest. Breathing was becoming a chore, hurting almost as much as seeing Billy.

What would he do if he knew? He wondered despite knowing the answer deep down. Billy valued his own skin more than anything else. He would rather stand by and let him die than to risk being exposed for what he was, what they both were.

/

“You don’t look so good”, Hartnell said at the beginning of their watch duty and he wanted to scoff at the understatement. Except that would have risked letting slip petals from his mouth so instead he made a noise in the back of his throat. “Have you been to the doctor?”

“I’m fine”, he replied quickly, only opening his lips and teeth as much as needed.

Hartnell didn’t look convinced but he let the topic slide. Instead he started to chat about the newest gossip circling around the decks. It never ceased to amaze him that despite being stuck on the same ship for the past two years and hundreds of miles away from civilisation, the rumour mill never ran out.

He listened, grateful for any distraction from the pain until Hartnell’s story involving the ship’s cat and the captain’s monkey made him laugh which triggered another cough attack.

There was no time for him to run and hide. His knees buckled and he ripped the scarf from his face, desperate for air as he choked on the petals overflowing from his mouth. Hartnell’s hands were on his shoulders, trying to hold him as his body convulsed until he spit out blood and a bloom.

He crushed it in his fist.

“Cornelius…”

“Not a word”, he replied between gasps of air. “To no one.”

“You are sick”, Hartnell said, crouching down next to him. “You shouldn’t be on duty like this.”

“What does it matter?” He gave Hartnell a hollow smile. “I’ll be dead in a week.”

/

Hartnell kept his secret but within a few days it was a moot promise. He could bear the pain in his chest, the roots squeezing his heart, but the flower buds in his throat made him wheeze for air even when standing still.

“Have you tried to tell them?” Goodsir asked in a hushed voice. 

As a dying man, he had the privilege of having a wall of canvas drawn around his sickbed but that only gave the illusion of privacy and made it easier to clean up once he was dead. Petals littered every surface around him and he could taste nothing but blooms and blood in his mouth.

He gave the doctor a look that clearly said, “What do you think?” before succumbing to another coughing fit.

Not long now.

Perhaps he should ask for Billy and make him see this. Show him what his cowardice had done to him. His blood was on Billy’s hands.

“That is a striped carnation”, Goodsir said, picking up the flower he had spit onto the sheets.

He shrugged.

“In the language of flowers striped carnations symbolise love that is torn apart by circumstance and not a lack of feelings.”

He rolled his eyes at the explanation.

“Who is it? Maybe I can talk to them. This doesn’t have to end in your death.”

As tempting as it was to rat Billy out, he would not sink so low. Not when it wouldn’t save him.

“Please tell me”, Goodsir implored him.

He shook his head.

/

“Cornelius”, Billy’s voice was quiet, fitting for the late hour. Of course, he would sneak in when everyone else was asleep. For the first time in months they were alone in the same room together and despite everything that had happened, he wanted to reach out and touch him.

“Come to see me die?” He asked, his voice barely a whisper. “Don’t worry. I kept your secret.”

“I thought you didn’t love me”, Billy said, his voice cracking.

“So did I.” And look how wrong he was. 

Billy opened his hand. A tiny purple hyacinth blossom lay on his palm.

It was enough to make a man laugh or cry, he wasn’t sure which one was more appropriate. “You killed us both then.” He did not believe for one moment that Billy would be brave enough to undo his mistake and save them.

“God damn you, Cornelius!” Billy said with uncharacteristic fury and suddenly Billy’s hands framed his face and Billy’s lips touched his mouth. The moment crashed over him like waves throwing themselves against a jagged shoreline.

He felt the pain ease and as they separated, he was able to draw a deep breath for the first time in weeks. “No, you damned me.”

“No one can know.” There it was again, the fearfulness in Billy’s voice. The cowardice that had brought them here in the first place.

“Of course.” What else could he say?

Billy kissed him again, softer and sweeter this time, like he used to and he wound his hands into Billy’s hair like he used to. He had bought this moment and all that would follow with his silence and his honour. As soon as he recovered, the crew would know that he was a sodomite and that one of them was, too. And if he ever displeased the captain, he could be flogged, or hanged without a court martial.

It was worth it.

He had to believe it was worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> Striped Carnations (which is what Hickey coughs up) mean No; Refusal; Sorry I Can't Be with You: Wish l Could Be with You in the Language of Flowers
> 
> Purple Hyacinth, Gibson's flower, means I Am Sorry; Please Forgive Me: Sorrow
> 
> Find me [ here](http://smaragdbird.tumblr.com/) on tumblr


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